THESE experiences of some of the early Huguenots in New York, as here related, are the result of many years of historical investigation by one of the most thorough antiquarian authorities in this country. Colonel Watson, who is now in his eightieth year, has a fund of knowledge regarding the locality in which he has no long lived, and the destinies of which he has so largely shaped, that is invaluable to American annals. He knows the Huguenot as do few living authorities. His own family connections have brought him into intimacy with them. This chronicle is gleaned from the authentic information which has come to him from Huguenot descendants and valuable private papers and journals in the possession of his family. Among his family heirlooms, Colonel Watson has the portraits of several prominent Huguenots. In preparing this narrative for record in THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY, Colonel Watson speaks of it as " some gleanings relating to incidents and experiences in the lives and fortunes of two French Huguenot families who fled from France during the reign of Louis XIV when he promulgated the revocation of the edict of Nantes and began a wholesale persecution of his Protestant subjects in 1685." Colonel Watson is as frank in his convictions as he is honest. In presenting them, he says: " I have, in the course of a long life and diligent study, formed my belief, such as it is, and have no thought of changing at my time of life. I do not find that I can now change it for better and I do not care to change it for worse. Such as I am and such as I have, I offer it to the readers of THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY. " Colonel Watson belongs to a strong race of men that have been making the last half-century the greatest epoch in the history of the world. It is in the memories of these men that much of the history of the nation is written. These gleanings from narratives that have come to him during a long and active life in the intimacy of Huguenot traditions are valuable and entertaining. - Editor 123 WE by the grace of God, of these United States, the land of a free people, are living in a truly golden age. We can put our trust in Pope, priest or atheist without fear of the galleys, dungeon, or the stake. Religious intolerance is at a discount; burning witches and hanging Quakers have gone out of fashion in these latter days. We are beginning to make a record for the Twentieth Century that is a credit to advanced civilization. The name of Huguenot, as applied to the dissenters from the Church of Rome, is supposed to have been derived from Hugeon, a word used in Touraine to signify persons who walk at night. Their only safe place of worship for one hundred years had been dark caves and the blue vault of the heavens. The matter of religion with Louis, XIV was merely a pretext. He used the Church as a club for wholesale confiscation. It was a rich field to work in, and the proceeds lined the pockets of the dissolute nobles of his court. The Huguenots, as a class, were the bone and sinew of France. The nobility were wealthy, the merchants and manufacturers prosperous, and the poorer classes sober and industrious. It is estimated that the loss to France by the Huguenot persecutions, first and last, was about 400,000. Manufactures and the arts were paralyzed, and the whole country suffered from its effects for one hundred years. Louis and his predecessors sowed the vipers' eggs that a century later brought Louis XVI and his court to the guillotine. Thus, in a measure, did time avenge the martyred Huguenots. This name was applied indiscriminately to those who adopted the creeds of Luther or Calvin. It seems they got an idea that the Bible would be a pretty good book for the people, and this did not suit the priests and monks of those days. They made a general job of burning both books and readers. Mankind is a contrary quantity, and, as is generally the case, their ideas grew and prospered under opposition and persecution. In the course of time, the Huguenots became a prominent factor among all classes, from noble to peasant. The followers of Luther and Calvin were the bone and sinew of the states, and in a general way, represented the best class of inhabitants. This struggle between advancement and ignorance was at its height about 1450. To quote a French monk of that period: "They have now found out a new language called Greek. We must carefully guard ourselves against it. That language will be the mother of all heresies. I see in the hands of a great number of persons a book written in this language, called the New Testament. It is a book full of brambles with vipers in them. As to the Hebrew, whoever learns that becomes a Jew at once." One hundred years passed and found the new faith growing, and persecution increasing. Phillip II of Spain devastated Flanders, and changed that rich country to a desert. The massacre of St. Bartholomew followed shortly after. In 1581, the exodus from France and Flanders began in earnest, but was stayed, in a measure, by Henry of Navarre, who was proclaimed king in 1584, with the title of Henry IV. As a Protestant himself, he promulgated the celebrated Edict of Nantes, but the people were soon deprived of its benefits when the king became a nominal Catholic for 124 political reasons. The persecution recommenced with greater fury and culminated in the revocation of the edict by Louis XIV, in 1685. Then the exodus began in earnest. There was no safety for a Huguenot in France. The galleys, dungeon or the stake was the alternative. All possible avenues of escape were closed by the king and his troops. He did not want to lose the people; he wanted to save their souls, but the poor deluded Huguenots did not see it in that light. The rich sacrificed their wealth, and the poor the little mite that they possessed, for the sake of life and liberty. Now and then some mentally weaker than the rest recanted, or pretended to do so, and outwardly seemed to be converted to the true faith, and were spared, but they were sharply watched. North, South, East and West, they fled for life and liberty; by highways, byways, wild mountain passes, forest trails, by sea. or land, enclosed in casks, or in the foul holds of merchant vessels bound to some foreign port. Any future prospect was preferable to a life in France. Holland, Germany and England gave them shelter, even benighted Russia gave a home to French exiles, and little Switzerland was full of refugees. Louis XIV sent the citizens of Geneva, a peremptory mandate to expel the Huguenots, under pain of his displeasure. They pretended to escort the exiles, with all due ceremony, outside the city gates, and quietly brought them in again by a gate on the other side. But Holland was crowded in population; the English laborer was jealous of the superior workmanship of the French emigrant; and it remained for America to make a final safe and happy home for the Huguenots of France. The best blood of France is blended with ours and we are proud of the result as it is today. The great loss of France is our gain. There is no better blood than the American in this year of 1908.